Hawkins - Forensic Investigators

MA (Hons)

Electrical engineering Christ’s College, Cambridge

PhD

Electronics Cambridge University

CEng MIET

Chartered Engineer

Rob studied Engineering at Christ’s College, Cambridge and after graduating with a BA/MEng specialising in Electrical and Electronic engineering he was sponsored by Rolls Royce to investigate electrical engineering applications of superconductors, in particular their use in ‘Fault-Current Limiters’.

After achieving his doctorate in 1999, Rob joined W.Vinten Ltd/Thales Optronics where he was responsible for development of real time software, test electronics, and applications software associated with a range of airborne reconnaissance sensors and imagery for defence purposes.

He has always had an interest in power engineering/transmission and distribution, and in 2002 Rob joined 24Seven Utility Services (now EDF Energy Networks Ltd) as a Design/Development Engineer for the Network Strategy team. During his time at EDF Energy, Rob moved into progressively more technical roles and became heavily involved in writing technical standards and policy documentation. His work included switchgear specifications and assessment, earthing policy and design, network optimisation, resilience, lightning protection, automation, transformer loading and thermal analysis together with power flow and network studies. He headed a small team and became the point of contact for queries ranging from minor LV earthing issues to major 132kV design issues.

Rob has had papers published at CIRED and represented EDF Energy on a number of panels, including regular meetings at Energy Network Association (ENA) offices in London to develop and contribute to industry-wide standards and engineering recommendations. He would occasionally be asked to contribute to EDF Energy internal investigations and it was whilst dealing with one such query that Rob became aware of Hawkins.

Rob realised that his skills were well suited to investigative work and he joined Hawkins in November 2007. Rob has since investigated a number of fires, explosions and engineering failures, and has produced reports for court dealing with electric shock and injury.

Rob is an Associate based at our Cambridge office.